Is that reddit topic about BFV already common knowledge in these forums?

Battlefield V General Discussion
1

I came across a video

Video: EA DICE Lies Exposed, Last of Us 2 Loses Legal Fight, BioWare's Anthem Dead A Bit Longer & More!

which was talking among several things about this reddit topic here which contains a English summary of a video spoken in German

Video: Battlefield V: ein Post Mortem! Brommentare #64

about the impressions of a German journalist and ea game changer about how things got so bad with BFV based on his interactions with people inside DICE.
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I just wanted to share that reddit post cause it contains few interesting insight/confirmations about how the BFV sausage was made.

I will quote the OP on reddit bellow:

Hello everyone,

Fabian Siegismund uploaded a video yesterday giving some insights into BF5’s development and confirming a few points most of us already suspected. But why should you believe him?

Firstly, he has worked for the biggest German games magazine “Gamestar.” He has basically written every preview for every Battlefield installment there is while visiting Dice very frequently to do this. He is known to be a “friend of the family.” Secondly, he has been an EA Game Changer and is thus in contact with developers and higher-ups at Dice and EA, who ask him about his opinion on the game from time to time.

You can find his video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Q6LK-s904.

Unfortunately, it is in German (and as you can infer from my English, I am German as well). I try my best to provide you with a short summary:

BF5’s early ending was to be expected.

He was quite enthusiastic when Dice provided him with a preview version, emphasizing that going back to Wake Island will be phenomenal. Unfortunately, Dice already told him back then that they are planning to drip feed the content and that there will be no famous map on launch.

He was telling them to be precise with their content plan, otherwise people will be disappointed. Dice underlined that they are aware of this and will stick to their roadmap(s) no matter the cost.

Compared to previous installments, developers were lacking excitement for their own game. He uses the words soulless and corporate to describe the employees’ demeanor on the launch event.

Dice was indeed very sulky on receiving negative feedback for their initial trailer.

From the beginning, lacking tech was the common explanation for not impoving the assignment system.

Dice thought that the combination of a campaign, multiplayer AND battle royale was the selling point of the game.

He does not understand the TTK changes and the lack of a CTE. The Game Changers visited Dice for the Pacific Update, where they were told about the TTK changes. Dice allowed no argument regarding these changes.

Strategic decisions have been puzzling and overly hasty from the start; i.e. changing customization several times behind the scenes.

Marketing budgets were frequently decreased as EA lost faith in the product relatively early.

Dice had problems understanding what the community wants when it comes to cosmetics.

That’s basically it. Nothing new, but confirming once again what most of us already suspected. I want to end my post by emphasizing that BF5 is not going anywhere for now. I am super happy for you if you enjoy the game and I am also sure that you will be able to find people to play with in the future.

Have a wonderful week!
Personally what I see the main problem from what is described here is that there was a big reluctance by the decision makers to take into account feedback that went against what they had in plan.

2

Exactly, everything he said is far from being new. People already figured out that BFV was in fact a shallow soulless product with idea to make money and nothing beyond that. We also knew since alpha and beta test that Dice has no idea and direction for the game so they just threw stuff at wall and hoped some sticked. And the infamous “tech is not here” thing is also well-known by now.

3

I think it we can call it officialy Memefield. Not in a funny way like previous battlefields, but in a more twisted, annoying and frustrating one. Different elements and mechanics that do not blend well together were put into a game, without much thought, and without any plan to improve them. It feels that the game was way better a year ago than right now. The worse part is that the game was created as an excuse to sell cosmetics. A reasonable amount of cosmetics, that is purchasing 2-3 of them of any kind (elites, weapon skins), cost more than the game itself!!!

4

I don’t dig into that salt mine called reddit, where the people are even worse.

5

Me neither, I do not like how the mob rule raises or buries posts. This is why I originally learned it from youtube. I do not see why the companies love reddit so much

6

Because plebbit is an ultimate safe space where people with different opinions are always silenced by loud majority and overprotective moderation.

7

I disagree with your personal bit at the end. The problem was not some reluctance (at l, quite the opposite in fact. The start of the demise was when they scrapped half their content due to the overly vocal “bUt mA HistORicAl aCcurAcY” crowd. At any give point they tried to find some sort of compromise to please everyone, or rather as many players as possible.

  • And before someone now tells me that they were always doing the opposite of what people were saying you should consider that the most vocal opinion isn’t necessarily representative of the whole community as well as the fact that I didnt claim them to be successfully achieving what they intended to do. -
    Anyways the issue was that they did in fact NOT stick to their plans and visions for the game. Even if the whole “progressive” influence was the wrong route to go, still stick to it instead of trying to do a 180 degree turn shortly before release. Bfv is the product of too many cooks in the kitchen. A little bit of everything, but nothing really. There was no vision anymore, no direction. The game just felt like one huge compromise and that simply doesn’t work.
8

Disagree, as it was headed it was going to be a total flop, the change brought it back to a semblance of a war game.
While the change in direction did hurt it, the original direction should have never been used to start with.

A war game based on war will do better with players than an overly monetised cash grab using progressive politics purely for the sake of more cosmetic options(it’s pretty much all it was about, customised prosthetics adds a myriad of options same goes for having women)

9

yeah nothing new and not something I would hold up as “confirmation” either.

btw, there’s no CTE because people only used it to preview new content in BF1. And DICE never used it to test out bugs or anything either in BF1.

10

Yeah, this confirms everything we all expected, its evident if you put 29 days into this game like me. So basically the people working at DICE have zero interest in fps games and the Second World War as a historical time period. That is evident in the content we received (or lack there of cough no USSR cough). Most if not all of the devs working on the game most likely never played the franchise for any considerable time, as someone who has would probably have an idea how to market to the fan base instead of being clueless about which cosmetics we would be excited about and spend money on. Most of the content went out with minimal testing as evident in all of the bugs we got. The balancing in this game was the worst in the BF franchise, because again, the devs don’t play their own game, because they are just in it for the job and money. EA should just change their name to EC, Electronic Corporation, because there is little appreciation for art, rather just profit.

11

I just don’t get how every BF release is like DICE are writing the game for the first time… and we get the SAME faults on every release, and usually by the end of the game’s life they have fixed all the faults (or near as dammit). It’s a cycle. And yet all we ever ask at the end of each BF iteration is for the same (fixed code) to be re-used, just with new skins\maps\ stuff to collect- how hard can it be DICE?

12

I think its due to the inherent issues with Frostbite coupled with high dev turnover rate. I don’t think many devs who created earlier games are still working at DICE.

13

developers were lacking excitement for their own game.
A real shame, as my favoured WWII theme ain’t gonna get repeated by EA anytime soon. :cry: And to think I watched all those early dev diary video pieces hyped each week without a clue! They hid it well :expressionless:

I would be interested to learn at exactly what point Firestorm hit the EA drawing board, as it always seemed like a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden popularity explosion of BR games when it was announced at E3 a few months after BFV was.

Firestorm must have sucked substantial budget/man power out of DICE’s core BFV development into the Criterion studio; with EA hedging their bets by having this alternate subsidiary of theirs develop it too. It must have really stung! But as we know, Respawn’s ApexL won the BR award for EA instead.

Ah well… I enjoyed most of what WWII we got while it lasted.

14

My have had some inside information but I think he missing the point on.

  • BF5 was not expected to finish early at launch. Cost benefit was the key. Things being released late impacts that. Those figures are forecast, so when actual data show it below that wrap up plans begin.
  • wow drip or bulk that the choice and since MTX drip the answer. As for maps how many complained about HISTORICAL inaccuracy even on the less known battles.
  • fair point.
  • of course they where demoralised BF1 trail smashed. However the BFV trailer showed features DICE wanted in all the got was abuse about robot women.
  • so yer they got sulky.
  • it was SP & MP since BF3. So why would they think adding a BR would not be better. With so many asking for a BR near the end of BF1.
  • how could he not see the problems with TTK, well he is not the onlyone. I understand why DICE did not want hear. As for CTE had do you regulate without it becoming early access to in purchased content.
  • demoralised people can become indecisive as a group they look for ways to get back on track. This is when staff turnover occurs and they start looking at ways to get a win and often makes things worse. The expression “think outside the box” find new source of ideas. They had that in BF4 and BF1 but that dried up in BFV.
  • again it is a cost benefit analysis. That was like based on pre-order sales.
  • yes DICE had problem listen to the community. Because some opposed any so called extra cosmetic, some wanted only historical as they saw, while most in between wanted authentic extra. However cost and details(5 part skin for a AR but none for a pistol) was a issue on why DICE got the wrong info.
15

I’ll never stop saying that…
“Greed and bad advice put a tombstone on this game.”

16

It wouldn’t have been a big hit for sure, but I think you overestimate the amount of people that actually care about things like historical accuracy. I didn’t claim that the way it was initially headed was a good one, but changing direction last minute was even worse. How much people care about historical accuracy is already displayed by the amount of people that run elite skins (despite their high price tag). I would have preferred to have significantly more content instead of having only a third of it due to “hiStOricAL InAcCUraCy”. Not at last for the improved income for dice/EA which would in turn have enabled them to support the game better and for a longer period of time. Looking at the sheer amount of scrapped content that we already know of is just sad. So much wasted time and effort and we probably don’t even know about a significant number of things that were worked on but never got released.

17

Content amount is unrelated to the change, all changes in direction were made early on, everything after release was fed in amounts relative to the games income.
This is the result of a live service model with investors who want their cut 1st and whatever was left being the budget for the service.

18

bf5 is dead stop trying to revive it haha, they limited the snipers scope in 6x and that s what you get 7m sales while cod modern warfare reach the bellion $

19

Because Battle Royale games are supposed to be Free to Play. This is what their “audience” is used to and will not pay 60 euros for it when there are free, more polished and popular alternatives.
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That is their biggest mistake with that mode. It should had been a standalone separate project instead of a “bait” to make BR players who are not BF players buy BF copies.

20

Just load up Battlefield 1. You don’t even have to play a match. Just load up the game and Menu and you will see a game that had a clear direction from the start and had the Tech.